Beatrice came to Darrowby on the recommendation of our vet, who came across her living in the second story of a house she’d never seen the outside of. Her hooves had grown so long that she could not walk, and she had spent five years living without sun, fresh air, or proper medical attention.
She was in the worst condition of any resident we’ve taken in, and she needed two more hoof trims beyond her initial intervention to make her hooves at all safe for her mobility. The trauma she experienced upon leaving her old home and arriving at Darrowby was reminiscent of Plato’s allegory of the cave: the sun was too bright, stretching her legs was too painful, pig food designed for her nutritional needs wasn’t as tasty as the human food she’d been fed: all the changes to improve her life were hard on her.
Despite all this, she made slow and steady progress; she rooted in the dirt for the first time, she woke to her first sunrise, which she stood still to watch all morning, and she learned about other pigs.
While she was initially terrified of the idea of any other pig, Bea found herself the object of Gilbert’s attention. Gilbert was only a few months old when Bea arrived, and he insisted on visiting her in her private hut. She tried to chase him out, to no avail, and she eventually got tired of standing grumpily outside her own house while Gilbert snuggled down in her bed. Gilbert’s persistence created a beautiful bond, and now Beatrice and Gilbert sleep together every night, facing each other, with her fitting perfectly between his front and back legs. Beatrice didn’t just find a home at Darrowby; she found a family.
